Trip to France

[barryd]

I did see a few using watering cans in Beauvais recently. Unthreaded tap for the drinking water and no easy way to secure a hose unless you have a very special adaptor. Ludicrous thing was, the tap for rinsing cassettes was threaded!

I have a clever adaptor somewhere which screws onto just about any tap with a standard hoselock on the other end. Looks expensive. Found it in the grass on a Stellplatz in Bavaria. If all else fails I fill a 25 litre carrier and just fill from the inside. This is usually deployed when wilding and off on a water hunt on the bike. I can get 40 litres on the bike. It fills me with great joy to return like some well ard hunter gatherer with lots of water for the little lady. As we know. They like to use lots of it.

 

[Tonybvi]

Used to have a red Renault 4 which I bought as a first car after we got married. CHK775G if I recall correctly. We loved that car with its quirky umbrella handle type gear lever. Ours must have been a deluxe version because it had proper sprung seats. Traded it in for a much more luxurious Renault 16.
Thanks for bringing back the memories.

 

[Pudsey Bear]

Had one in the late 80s Tony, a gold one, best amour car ever made.

 

[Pudsey Bear]

I have a clever adaptor somewhere which screws onto just about any tap with a standard hoselock on the other end. Looks expensive. Found it in the grass on a Stellplatz in Bavaria. If all else fails I fill a 25 litre carrier and just fill from the inside. This is usually deployed when wilding and off on a water hunt on the bike. I can get 40 litres on the bike. It fills me with great joy to return like some well ard hunter gatherer with lots of water for the little lady. As we know. They like to use lots of it.

I have a few, in the van, dunno why we still carry them though.

Raccords multi robinet Hozelock | Castorama

Raccords multi robinet Hozelock

www.castorama.fr

 

[marchie]

And all that happened because you were speeding ............

Not me, guv. I'm more likely to get done for loitering with intent, which is jolly unfair, since I'm driving flat out ...

Steve

 

[barryd]

I have a few, in the van, dunno why we still carry them though.

Raccords multi robinet Hozelock | Castorama

Raccords multi robinet Hozelock

www.castorama.fr

Yeah they would be really useful them Kev. Just add a hosepipe

 

[TJBi]

I have a few, in the van, dunno why we still carry them though.

Raccords multi robinet Hozelock | Castorama

Raccords multi robinet Hozelock

www.castorama.fr

Yes, I have one of those - can be useful in the UK but doesn't fit the type of tap encountered at Beauvais and on some other service points in France.

 

[colinm]

It works fine, but for off line I think CoPilot is best if kept up to date.

I use google maps on my phone when in the car, when offline it doesn't work correctly, by that I mean even with downloaded maps it will often refuse to display speed limits, I've also never managed to get the overspeed sound alert working, in the van I use a TomTom, this displays the speed limit and pings at me if it thinks I'm speeding, the same with my old Windowphone maps.

 

[SimonM]

If you want to see old cars come here to Norway, there are stacksaplenty of them at weekends grumbling around, old Chevys, Corvettes (saw one with reg.no. BOOST) GMC trucks, all late 50s and 60s stuff. Loads of Hardly Worthits as well, and plenty of Charlie McEwen wannabes.

 

[Pudsey Bear]

I use google maps on my phone when in the car, when offline it doesn't work correctly, by that I mean even with downloaded maps it will often refuse to display speed limits, I've also never managed to get the overspeed sound alert working, in the van I use a TomTom, this displays the speed limit and pings at me if it thinks I'm speeding, the same with my old Windowphone maps.

It's normally fine Colin, but its biggest issue for me is the limit displayed is often higher than the posted ones, so not reliable but just the same in the UK though, another is it drones on about bothe the road number and road name you're supposed to take but you rarely see them so you have to really take notice of the screen, a problem had the other day was on an A road driving into the sun and the road numbers being on a small plate above the normal road sign was invisible, I'd missed the instruction and had to do a 10k detour,not Google's fault that time, but french signage.

I thought the UK and Europe were all supposed to have similar signage, and I dont recall any problems when I've been before in 89 94 96, have they changed that?

 

[Tonybvi]

If you want to see old cars come here to Norway, there are stacksaplenty of them at weekends grumbling around, old Chevys, Corvettes (saw one with reg.no. BOOST) GMC trucks, all late 50s and 60s stuff. Loads of Hardly Worthits as well, and plenty of Charlie McEwen wannabes.

We lived in Norway for many years and were always impressed by the state of their old cars. Transpires it’s mainly because they do not use salt on the roads (studded tyres are obligatory for insurance purposes) so really hardly any corrosion.

 

[SimonM]

We lived in Norway for many years and were always impressed by the state of their old cars. Transpires it’s mainly because they do not use salt on the roads (studded tyres are obligatory for insurance purposes) so really hardly any corrosion.

Clearly they use a lot of grit, the sides of the roads are covered with it. Indeed today I saw several people raking the verges and bagging it up. There’s loads of it still encased in snow by the sides of the roads. I guess they’ll sweep it all up and recycle it to use next winter ie in a couple of months time

 

[Tonybvi]

Never saw any grit when we were there. What did happen though was that because of the studded tyres, at the end of winter the roads all had parallel ruts in them where they had been cut up by the studs. The eroded road surface coated the cars with tarry grime and we could buy a super cleanser called Lensotil or something like that which did magic in cleaning the cars. Each year the roads would be planed down to remove the ruts, but not necessarily resurfaced, which only took place every few years.
Even the buses all carried chains as well as having studded tyres in the winter.

 

[colinm]

It's normally fine Colin, but its biggest issue for me is the limit displayed is often higher than the posted ones, so not reliable but just the same in the UK though, another is it drones on about bothe the road number and road name you're supposed to take but you rarely see them so you have to really take notice of the screen, a problem had the other day was on an A road driving into the sun and the road numbers being on a small plate above the normal road sign was invisible, I'd missed the instruction and had to do a 10k detour,not Google's fault that time, but french signage.

I thought the UK and Europe were all supposed to have similar signage, and I dont recall any problems when I've been before in 89 94 96, have they changed that?

We where heading towards Versailles about a mile from the aire which was our destination, driving on a busy but free flowing main road, when the satnag said "turn right", as we where right on the junction I swung into it before noticing it should have been "bare right", it took another hour to cover that mile on jam packed side roads in middle of rush hour.

 

[trevskoda]

Used to have a red Renault 4 which I bought as a first car after we got married. CHK775G if I recall correctly. We loved that car with its quirky umbrella handle type gear lever. Ours must have been a deluxe version because it had proper sprung seats. Traded it in for a much more luxurious Renault 16.
Thanks for bringing back the memories.

I remember having to help an uncle change the clutch in a ren 4 before i was just 16, real barstewart of a job, and it handled like a bar of soap on a ice ring.

 

[Robmac]

I remember having to help an uncle change the clutch in a ren 4 before i was just 16, real barstewart of a job, and it handled like a bar of soap on a ice ring.

I had one of the early Renault 5's which also had the 'umbrella' gear change.

It also had a large, canvas sun roof which my mate flicked open whilst we were doing about 40, the car practically did a wheelie!

Similar to this one;

I later bought a Renault 5 GT which was a great car, really wanted a Renault 5 Turbo (mid engine) or a Gordini Turbo though.

 

[barryd]

I had one of the early Renault 5's which also had the 'umbrella' gear change.

It also had a large, canvas sun roof which my mate flicked open whilst we were doing about 40, the car practically did a wheelie!

Similar to this one;

View attachment 131368

I later bought a Renault 5 GT which was a great car, really wanted a Renault 5 Turbo (mid engine) or a Gordini Turbo though.

I had three Renault 5s. The first one named Dylan was black with silver stars all over it. It was the Glastonbury mobile. There is a photo somewhere of us sat on the roof drinking scrumpy in front of the Pyramid stage watching the sound checks. 1989 I think.

 

[Robmac]

I had three Renault 5s. The first one named Dylan was black with silver stars all over it. It was the Glastonbury mobile. There is a photo somewhere of us sat on the roof drinking scrumpy in front of the Pyramid stage watching the sound checks. 1989 I think.

We had a Renault 12 as well Barry which Julie's dad gave us.

To my shame I piled it into the back of another motor after an all day session obviously losing me my license. I was a bad lad back then!

 

[barryd]

We had a Renault 12 as well Barry which Julie's dad gave us.

To my shame I piled it into the back of another motor after an all day session obviously losing me my license. I was a bad lad back then!

Tit!! I put my first company car upside down in a tree in the lake district, second day I had it. Went camping in the lakes with Michelle. Went for a drive on my own at 8am top end of Bassenthwaite lake. Met a car coming the other way on the wrong side of the road doing about 50 and swerved to avoid him. Lost control and ended upside down with a branch through the passenger window. Breathalysed, still over from the night before. (nobody thought about that then, early 90s). Banned.