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We will need fossil fuels for quite some time but the planet desperately needs to reduce its reliance on these if we are going to survive long term. Trump will be gone in 3 years and hopefully the pragmatists in the US will see that renewables and nuclear energy (though the waste is an issue) are the ONLY way forward. The problem is that it is dis-United with so many MAGA nutters and an education system that does not consider facts that are not American or anything that happens outside of America. Hollywood has distorted facts and American war movies always show how Americans won everything. Most believe WW2 started with Pearl Harbour. The fact that if the battle of Britain had not been won there would have been no place to create an invasion force. The Battle of the Bulge was only successful due to Montgomery sending 30 Corps South to stop the German Armour from crossing the Muse & taking Antwerp. US generals were scathing of British meticulous planning, engineering expertise and total concern at reducing casualties through innovation etc and Bletchley park with cracking the Enigma code has never really been acknowledged as most Americans believe they did it. The Poms just sucked it all up as by 1945 they were bankrupt & needed the US so did not complain. Now Trump has changed everything with his team of ignorant rampant neo colonialists and world dominance through absolute power. Things are changing though with the UK & Europe finally beginning the re-arm & get rid of the US dependence. Putin plays Trump like a chap violin & Xi just watches it all while seeing his dominance continue to expand. China out produces everyone especially in new technology with EVs, robots, machinery, solar and wind power and everything else. It is the worlds new high tech factory and no-one can get close now. Those of us in our 70s & more have seen the best of times. We will all be gone in a few years so hopefully human resourcefulness and decency will eventually prevail.

You have a point there Jerry about the risks of 18 year old motorbiking. At least in my case, 18 was the year of most risky behaviour and I was lucky to survive it and almost didn't. Things were different back then. No such thing as learner approved motorcycles. We didn't even have learner permits then; once you turned 17 you could get an open bike license and go out and buy and ride the biggest, fastest motorcycle you could afford. As far as risky behaviour was concerned, you could get away with a lot. Police numbers were very small and policing was reactive and rarely proactive. There was no random breath testing (not until the end of 1988), no hidden speed guns (they hadn't been invented at that stage), no random roadworthy pull-overs, no roadworthy certificates; I could sit here for an hour and add to this list. We did have police speed radars but they were very rare and very obvious. It wasn't hard to spot a copper sitting on a chair under a tree with a big radar set perched on top of a small table. We didn't do cafe racing, more like pub racing, high speed pub crawls on bikes. In this district now, the police number in the high hundreds, whereas back in the seventies there was probably only about fifteen or twenty at most and usually only two to patrol the whole district after hours. Riding a bike back then was a bit like the wild west. I bought my first bike at age 14, a BSA Bantam 175cc, although I'd been riding the neighbours Francis Barnett for some time before that. At around 15 I graduated to a 250 Honda Dream for a paddock basher around the farm. On turning 17 I got my driver's license. No written test from memory. In those days we had separate license categories for car, body truck, semi trailer (one category to cover any number of trailers, no separate road train category like now), motorbike, and category G which was tractors, harvestors, graders and all sorts of general machinery. I got them all in one go and the only driving test was to drive our old AA160 International truck down the road and do a handbrake start on a sloping rail crossing. I had a neighbour's little Commer semi trailer lined up for a test, but the copper asked me if I'd driven it and was satisfied with my word that I had (8 miles down a straight, flat road). He also said he wanted to see me riding my first legal road bike, a 1957 AJS 500 single, before issuing a license. He knew I'd been riding it without a license but just wanted to check I could handle it ok. I drove the truck home, got on the bike and rode back to town,. As I pulled up in front of the police station, he was standing there with my license in hand, which he handed to me and said see you later. I never even got off the bike. The joys of a country copper back in the day. These days the bike license is the only separate category you have to have. All the others are covered by the highest level category. For example I have mototcycle and heavy combination (semi trailer). HC covers all those under it like car, body trucks, tractors and machinery. If I had a road train license (multi combination), my license would be only two categories, MC and motorcycle which would cover anything you can drive on the road. Around the time I had the AJS at age 17, I also had a 741 Indian unregistered for a restoration project that never happened before I sold it. After that came the Norton Commando and the 18 year old dangerous period. Other bikes I had over the years were a Yamaha SR500, a Suzuki 50 stepthrough and Honda postie bike. I'm not sure if you'd call the last two bikes, more like toys.

Still riding after more than 40 years and still never had a bike accident on road and only a few falls offroad- worst bent a clutch lever. That includes racetrack fun and even been a Monkey on a ballistic racing LCR sidecar. Current beasty is a 167hp BMW k1200R, only 121,000 km so well run in. For it's 21st birthday it's getting a diff rebuild as a O ring was leaking, plus new rubber and rear disc. I got through the early silly years by always having a mature attitude to my skills development and knowing every car is probably trying to kill you. I always use the Piano principle- "unless a piano falls from the sky and hits you in the back of the head - I should have seen it coming". No amount of skill overcomes a poor attitude.

My life would have Been totally different IF i hadn't ridden and Mucked around with Motorbikes. Even on old motorbikes I've been to Places I would NEVER otherwise have gone to otherwise and Met a few Long life friends Done a Lot of OFF road Motorcycling Built a lot of Old Bikes and Made a lot of Parts for them. ALL MY Kids Have bikes My wite was a good off road rider and rode Big Harley Outfits well. Much Better than Most Blokes. Gotta go for tea and watch the tennis Finals. Hoo Roo . Nev

Trump insists even now that he won the 2020 election and has been doing his best to re-write history ever since. I think the best way to resolve this would be just to tell him he was right all along and declare him the winner. Then declare the 2024 election invalid because he can't have a third term.

Likewise, congratulations Peter; I'm looking forward to reading the book. My very limited gold experience was all in 1986. I worked for a time for a Brisbane based drilling company and we did five weeks of diamond drilling on an old abandoned historic gold mine near Inglewood. We were tracking a quartz reef that was about 4' deep and only about 6" wide. 60 degree angle drilling if my memory is correct. The boss made a lot of money on that rig. It was an old ex New Guinea Mindrill that he picked up for $4,000. 35 days drilling, 12 hour days, it would have paid for itself in no time. It was mounted on a 4 wheel trailer and towed behind a truck. Made in Melbourne I think and basically just a glorified lathe. Had a 5 cylinder Lombardini main motor and a little 2 cylinder mud pump. The old mine shafts were those old scary narrow ones. It was one of those mines that closed in WW1 due to lack of manpower and never restarted again. Not long after that job I left the company and went over to Halls Creek and did some subcontracting for Freeport, basically just constructing access and pads for gold test rigs. After that I worked for a while for an alluvial miner at the Old Halls Creek area. The creeks had been picked out in the 1800's and there were only a few odd exploratory trenches dug out from the creek banks. I'd strip and stockpile the bank area top until we found some gravel that indicated where the ancient creek bed was. Then it was a matter of very slowly shaving off a couple of inches at a time so the miner and his partner could go over the exposed gravel bed with detectors. That thin removed layer was stockpiled and they would run a detector over the heap after the wet season had washed it. If they fell on hard times, they would get the dry blower going and put the stockpile through it. Hot, dusty, hard work and the least desirable option compared to detecting and picking up nuggets. I saw my first decent sized nugget on that job.

The Red rubber framed Postie Bike would be the Most dangerous. I rode along Bush tracks thru Creeks and alongside railway lines for years On a 1927 Model 101 INDIAN that needed absolutely NOTHING to be done to it other than ME Making a replacement Rotor for the Splitdorf Magneto. That was a very Popular Model. I Paid 5 Quid for it with sidebox. I'd had about 5 bikes before that one. No one in my family was Mechanical OR liked Motorbikes. Nev

Let's not forget the only army that actually scared the Japanese and German soldiers were Aussies. And the first to stop both in their tracks. Same as Vietnam war, the Vietcong were shit scared of the small group Aussie patrols. The yanks were just hopeless. Movie and TV from US is generally propaganda eg U571 a bullshit movie about yanks getting the Enigma machine first when it was the British. Or the recent series Landmen which glorifies oil. Or Topgun heavily subsidised propaganda by the military. The list goes on...

I like our evap ducted unit. I like the humidity.SWMBO wants to replace it with a refrig type.

I have had quite a few old bikes but only one brand new one. It was an RT1 Yamaha in 1971. 360cc trail bike, I rode it on long road trips too. I still have two of them but probably can’t kick start them any more.

I got the humour, but the thought just saddens me.

https://greenisland.feji.io/blog/breaking-news-australia-just-gave-carney-a-parliament-stage-and-it-signals-a-realignment-the-us-cant-ignore-nn

Never even been a passenger on a bike let alone ridden one.

Wooden Bridges with the Planks laid along them are a BIG challenge especially when wet or frosted.. OLD ones get big gaps and splinters between the cracks. Nev

Nev, that's what a mate of mine did. He had a Triumph he'd been riding for a lot of years but gave away riding at age 70. He just didn't feel confident with all the traffic these days and health issues from a couple of heart attacks. I don't know how I'd go on the road these days. I haven't ridden a bike on the road for thirty years and it's a totally different ball game here now with the big population and car increases. A mate of mine is 67 and has just taken it up again after a lot of years. He's just recently bought a new Bonneville Speedmaster. One thing on his side, he lives north of here in a slightly quieter area with less traffic, and he rides with his son and his son's mates (all Harley riders) and they are all very protective of him and keep a good eye on him. The Speedmaster is a good old bloke's bike - nice low, very comfortable seating position, good for touring. His only issue with the Bonnie is that it sounds like a sewing machine with the stock pipes so he's ordered a set of straight through drag pipes from that mob in Tasmania that make after market pipe systems for a lot of bike brands.

Genuine question - why is that? I have ridden both faired and naked bikes and I can't discern the difference in awareness. I started late with motorbikes - first learned in Vic when I was 27.. It was fun, but didn't grab me. Next time I took to a bike, learned all over again at 40 - yes 40. It wasn't a mid life crisis thing. I had returned from 2.5 years in Aus. I was working only two doors from the company I left in the UK to return to Aus. That was in Watford and I was in Richmond and there was no easy and safe public transport between them. The car journey was an hour each way (with the odd delay), but after I moved to Aus, the EU expanded to include a lot of Eastern European nations. They preferred to live in the Acton, Ealing, Wembley and surroindign areas right in the middle of my route. The congestion charge came in roughly at the same time causing tradies and the like to take circuitous routes, and my one hour drive became a 2 hour drive each way. It was more of a necessity than a desire at the time. But since, I wish I had taken it up earlier.. maybe not at 18 a I may not be here to tell the tale. I won't bother with wheelies, burnouts, and the like (such as this young woman), but I feel approaching biking at a more mature but fit enough age brough survival instincts further to the front of my mind, anyway: (sorry for the thread drift)

I was part owner of the Fairplay Gold Mine at Higginsville, W.A. from 1972 to 1990, when the mine was sold to a large gold mining company. The brother, his wife and I mined and produced around 600 ozs of gold in that period, utilising the Norseman State Battery (a 10 head stamp mill, owned by the W.A. Govt). Gold was ignored and only worth around $35 oz when we purchased the mine from two old Slav prospectors. But U.S. President Richard Nixon had taken America off the Gold Standard in August 1971, in a staggering display of non-consultative, "executive" Presidential power. It was called the "Nixon shock", and it rattled the worlds financial markets - and led to a rapid rise in the price of gold, now the gold price was no longer controlled by the U.S. We knew this would happen, and purchased the gold mine accordingly. By 1975 the gold price was $160 oz and by 1980, it was over $800 oz, and there was another gold rush on. At that point, our strategy of utilising an under-utilised and cheap source of ore crushing went to hell in a handbasket, as scores of prospectors turned up at the State Battery to crush parcels of ore. A queueing system for crushing was initiated - but even worse - the Govt imposed a very sharp increase in crushing costs to reduce the State Batteries ever-increasing losses (the State Batteries were always subsidised to encourage local employment, bring in gold revenue, and to assist in prospecting work that might deliver new and profitable mines). At that point, we turned to the large (200,000 tonne) tailings dump on our mine, which still held an average of around 2 grams/tonne of tailings. We took on 3 business partners who had experience in heap leaching and cyanidation of tailings, and between all of us, we developed an improved design of tailings leach vats, which proved very effective and very profitable. The benefit of treating tailings was the ore was already crushed very fine, it just had to be set up with the correct pH levels, be able to contain a cyanide leach solution, and to have a simple circulatory pumping system. The addition of activated carbon in stainless steel tanks finished off the treatment process, and it was a very simple job to set up a small, single-cylinder Lister diesel pump to circulate the solution until the activated carbon was full of gold! Then the tanks would be taken into Kalgoorlie to be stripped of the gold, using a caustic solution, by professional carbon tank strippers. The final product, gold "dore" bars were taken into the Perth Mint, which refined the gold to the Internationally-accepted gold bar standard of 99.999 (%) fine gold. After we had re-treated all our gold tailings on the Fairplay lease, we re-treated many more tens of thousands of tonnes of tailings, from numerous other tailings dumps we had pegged. It was a very profitable period for us in the 1980's. Then, after we ran out of tailings dumps of our own to re-treat, we went on to build tailings vats on contract for other operators that needed to re-treat their tailings. We re-treated tailings and built leach vats for well over 2M tonnes of tailings in the 1980's, from as far East as Ejudina, 150kms E of Kalgoorlie, to Burtville, SE of Laverton, W.A. - right through the W.A. Goldfields, to even Marble Bar! It was a very interesting period, and one that was highly profitable, and not a period I'm likely to see again! The sheer pleasure of holding a large gold bar that you've produced and poured, is something that few people experience.

My wife and I moved into this house with our two young toddler sons just before Christmas 1978. The temps were very high that year, so we had a reverse cycle wall mounted unit installed in the lounge room. We rarely used the heater function, because the house had ducted gas heating. In hot weather my wife used to sleep in the lounge room. The unit is still working and was a boon for my daughter last week.

You mean to tell us? - that an image of Trump wasn't in the first results?? 😄

Our little wheel around refrig unit created plenty of water for the pot plants on our recent 40¯ day.

We must have had a very inefficient evap ducted unit in the house I rented in Bendigo. It really did nothing discernable to the temperature, but we could feel the humidity. Refridgerant airconditioners seemed to get the temperature down to where it was needed. But, jeepers, it was expensive to run.

I love a good read, I have ordered from Amazon, I brought a copy of the old book Gold, from a customer for $100 ounce after spotting it in their caravan whilst working on it. i knew I had seen it before, but forgot t had been among y dads books. so e great info in finding old creeks and river bed signs even when they have moved.

I have finally finished my book with the title Hidden Rivers of Gold which covers the origins of Deep Lead Mining, the technology and challenges, and the final years of mining in the Carisbrook-Moolort area of Victoria which led to huge financial losses and very little gold. Characters involved included the State Premier and a future president of the USA. This was all around the turn of the 20th Century. The book can be purchased through online booksellers including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Fishpond, Booktopia and Angus and Robertson. Prices vary a lot, and some are in US$ so check carefully. The book is published by Echo Books.

Unfortunately I was unable to save a link as I was posting the story above about the Melania movie, but there was another report that Trump now wants an Order of Australia award for all the good work he has done.

https://northwavenews.com/posts/💥-trump-rages-as-australia-bursts-out-laughing-at-melanias-movie-international-mockery-explodes-humiliation-goes-global-first-ladys-flop-turns-into-total-scandal-inferno-hthao/

I still get the shudders when I think of the WLA Harleys that got away. It was around late 1971 or early 1972 when I heard the story of a pile of war surplus Harleys on a farm about a half hour drive from where I lived. I heard about it from the local bike shop mechanic who said he'd seen them but didn't remember exact directions. I knew the approximate area so rode out there on my AJS. At one stage I saw a farmer riding an ex-army WLA with an open box side car around his paddock so I pulled up and walked over to the fence. When he came over, I quizzed him about the bikes and as it turned out, it wasn't him who had them but a neighbour down the road a bit further. When I rode in the driveway and pulled up, I saw a solo restored registed WLA parked there. As it turned out, it belonged to a farm hand who had bought it from the property owner. The owner was an absentee type who lived in Central Queensland and had a manager running the farm. I had a yarn to the manager and he showed me around. As we wakled over to a shed, I spotted a WLA with box sidecar in the long grass beside the shed. It was oxidised from the weather but you could tell from the lack of seat wear and lack of dents and scratches that it had been hardly used. Lying all round the place in long grass were lots of Harley engines, gearboxes and bits, along with old Willys jeep stuff. We went around into the shed and there was another WLA with sidecar and three solos stacked there. At that stage, I thought there were the three solo bikes and two outfits plus a heap of bits and pieces in total. Unfortunately I was a bit young and naive and didn't push hard enough. The owner in Central Queensland for some reason had no phone contact, so the manager said he would be down to the property around a certain date. In hindsight, I should have got his address and rode up there to make him an offer in person as the manager said he would probably want to sell them. Anyway, I rode back out there on the date he was supposed to be at the farm and ended up walking right into one of those 'you should have been here yesterday' scenarios. The manager told me the owner had come down a bit earlier than expected and a bloke who was stationed at the Oakey Air Base had bought all the bike stuff from him only a matter of days before. I was told he took away a semi trailer full of Harleys and parts. The owner sold the lot for $200, about five weeks wages back then. At a later date, the mechanic who gave me the original lead asked me if I'd looked in the other shed which I hadn't. He said there was a heap more Harleys in there along with a pile of new old stock parts. That fitted in with the managers description of the size of the truck load compared with what I'd seen. In those days there were a lot of farms with old stuff lying around in sheds, but nothing like this one. I was only 17 at the time and not real savvy so missed the mother lode. It's funny when you look back and how we took that old stuff for granted back then when it was plentiful. Around the same time, I followed another lead on a so called barn find, a Panther 600cc Sloper. All it needed was a new clutch otherwise it was in really good condition. The farmer wanted $20 for it but I passed it over thinking it was not worth that price.

The ONLY Mining I've done is OPALS at Lightning Ridge. . Nev

Mine had a front Brake, Thru stud front engine Mount and a Tapered tank and different Handlebars and headlight .That's a 24 or 25. I'd say with Beaded edge tyres. Looks to be a very NICE bike and all correct. Nev

My first was Honda Elsinore 350- the first 4 valve single enduro bike, a 73? Model. I was a small 13 year old and it had huge compression and no decompressor lever, as such a absolute bastard to start, a renowned ankle breaker from backfires. My first legal was a Yamaha RX 125 smoker then a RZ350R ex Swann race series. Then at 21 a BMW R100CS.

Those buildings have been there for e LOOOooong time. Nev

Yesterday it got to 46C inside my place. All I could do was sit on the lounge and read a book with the evaporative cooler blowing cold air in my direction. I went to the kitchen to rinse a glass and nearly burned my hand on the tap. In the afternoon cloud started to build up. Later that evening I watched the lightning in the clouds downwind. When I woke up this morning, my bedsheets and pillow were drenched with sweat. I looked outside and the sky was clouded over, but the clouds were too high to suggest rain coming soon. So I threw my bedding into the washing machine, figuring that in the heat and low humidity it would dry before any rain came. Now it's midday and the cloud has moved downwind. At least my bedding is dry so I can remake my bed for another sweaty night. All week the temperature has been in the high 30s, rising to 40+ by late afternoon. I woke up this morning with no energy. I don't know if that's because it has been too hot to make me feel like eating, or if I've lost electrolytes. It's getting close to midday and the temperature is 36C. After what I have endured this week, 36C feel cool. Luckily I'll be going into see Mum this afternoon. She's got air conditioning.

With such a shortage of housing, the Victorian Government has decided to demolish seven public housing towers designed for the elderly, to be redeveloped. In the meantime, where are these residents meant to go, and what will that do to the waiting list for accommodation? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-06/public-housing-demolition-residents-relocated-private-homes/105619934

It has been raining here for about three weeks. At least the Brit humour shines through on the sign in this article: https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/31/climate-crisis-flood-risk-britain

If you're not happy with the location and there are no buyers for it, check in on areas you may like to see if any sellers are willing to do a property swap to your area and cash out the difference either way. You will have to cover stamp duty at the valuer general's valuation, but a good lawyer can minimise it and while they will charge you to do it, it could still save you thousands. I couldn't find a site that handles property swaps, except for vacations, but an uncle of mine did it twice in the good ol' daze.

Regarding the bridge, the local mill stopped running locos some time before the mill shut down and relied on road transport during that interim period. As a consequence, it fell into disrepair and was eventually dismantled due to public risk with people using it for fishing and jumping off it into the water. Eventually the company who owned the mill (Bundaberg Sugar I think it was at the time) came to the decision that their assets had more real estate value than they could make from crushing sugar so the sold it all up so developers could grow houses instead. Sad really to see one of the district's biggest industries vanish after being part of the place since the 1800's. The area had a lot of character when the cane industry was still solid. I live up on a hill and the old tram track used to go past the bottom of my property. Lots of good memories sitting on the verandah at night, listening to the locos rattling past and watching the cane fires out on the floodplain. Burning was not a very sustainable practice but it was very visual. For five to six months of the year it was like having cracker night every night. Over the years they ended up breeding varieties that produced less dead leaf trash and most burning went out of practice. What trash produced was left in the paddock to act as mulch in a way. Obvious benefits like more moisture holding ability, less weeds etc., but they had to develop machinery to be able to work it. There's not much cane grown here these days as it needs to be a high price to break even on trucking it some hours north of here to the nearest working mill. The only time they burn now is if they are harvesting what they call standover cane which is cane that has been left over to the next season or even longer. The more years it grows, the thicker the stalks get and the more trash and leaf growth there is, so it has to be burnt so the harvester can handle it. The sugar content drops as well with old cane. I miss the cane; these days instead of looking down over nice green cane fields, all I see is thousands of acres of weeds. It puts a lot of people out of work when a whole industry collapses. Farmers aside, a lot of the mill workers were multi-generational in their history there. I used to work occasional cane seasons harvesting cane and a lot of mates are local cane farmers or ex mill workers so I have a personal connection to it. I was born and bred in cattle, sheep and grain country so the cane was a big novelty to me when I first moved down here to the coast. Also here there's plenty of salt air to create rusty bits for making rat bikes (just to stay on topic).

Congratulations. Whether it makes the Best Seller lists or not, you must be pround of your achievement. At least you have created something that will last into the future. You nver know. Maybe at some time in the future your work will be included in the bibliography of a doctorial paper on the history of mineral exploitation in Australia.

And you can get anything you want At Alice's Restuarant, Exceptin' Alice.

Years ago myself and a mate used to ride our bikes (Norton Commando and Velocette Clubman) across this drawbridge; one of those tasks where you had to hold your mouth right and not look down. What made it extra tricky was that both bikes had clipons. The gap between the two planks would grap the front tyre a bit just to make it more interesting.

That looks like a modern prison

Having your OWN Place is good You can fiddle with it a bit to get More comfortable depending on how Over Bearing the Local Council is. Owing money is like Having Cancer. On your Mind all the time. Nev

Silly Planning isn't it? Europe does it better. Common walls can be sound Proof and secure. CARS must be off the street. Nev

What a lot of people chose to ride Meets the Approval of their PEER group as a priority for a lot of people. Same for the way they dress. Slaves to fashion. Nev

If you go into the reply box, click on the emoticon button in the toolbar and type Groan in the search box, you will get this -

Doesn't Trump like taking other people's trophies?

People Turn to GOLD in times of great Uncertainty. Nev

A very expensive one, that's for sure. The fact that the price of gold has currently soared to exotic heights is pretty indicative of how low the value of our currencies has become, thanks to political mismanagement and squandering.

Renting always put you at a disadvantage, because the landlord/landlady can die, sell up, or just toss you out, because they "want to redevelop". Nothing says "secure" like owning your own home. Pick a place that is low maintenance and doesn't encompass a big area or lots of rooms, which most people don't need, and never use, anyway. Around my neck of the woods (inner-city Perth), we have 30's, 40's and 50's houses that are quite often heritage listed or have other restrictions on them, and most purchasers move in here because we have one of the "old, leafy, quiet, sought-after suburbs", and because they have money to extend, modernise and revamp the properties. As a result, every second house around here is anywhere from 5 to 8 bedrooms, have massive rear extensions, second stories added, swimming pools installed - and most of those houses are occupied by just TWO people!! I guess these owners must pay out constantly for house maintenance and cleaning, because I sure wouldn't want to be doing all that work by myself! We live in a house built in 1957, it had 2 bedrooms and sleepout originally, then the previous owner (and original builder) turned the sleepout into a third bedroom with a modest brick extension. We put in a new kitchen in 2005, and a new bathroom the year before last, and that might be the last renovations we do - although SWMBO talks about re-doing the kitchen again. We don't really want to move, because this spot is very central, very quiet, no crime, the rates are relatively modest, and everything we look at elsewhere is either going to cost us a lot more, or we get jammed into a tiny block in a new housing estate. The last is something neither of us want, we're on a little under 600 sq m, have lots of nice big trees and a well-established garden, and we don't have neighbours arguing just 3 metres away. Plus, our house has nice big rooms and high ceilings, larger than the standard of the time, because the original owner was a builder. I would never ever move to a rented property simply because of the insecurity angle. I like knowing that I can decide when and how I move, not having it forced on me at a bad time.